Sunday, May 31, 2009

People Who Should Be Were Shot: One More.

George Tiller presumably took an oath that says (translated to English) "First, do no harm." Then he went on to kill an untold number of people whose crimes were largely "Capital Inconvenience to People With Vaginas."

"Dr." George Tiller is now dead. Shot when he had his guard down. Let that be a lesson to all of us with unpopular opinions. He was murdered in church.

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His clinic is was one of less than a handful in the country that would kill your baby for you after they were already old enough to be born and subsequently survive. It is fortified, and he usually rolled with bodyguards, but apparently he was unguarded in church. No comment on the type of church that admits a practicing murderer as an usher.

"The slaying of the 67-year-old doctor is "an unspeakable tragedy," his widow, four children and 10 grandchildren said in statement."

The slaying of persons who had done nothing besides gestate is an unspeakable tragedy. This guy's removal from The Land Of The Living is only going to improve a baby's chance of being born. It's inconvenient for you all, but you'll have to excuse my lack of sympathy.

""We are shocked at this morning's disturbing news that Mr. Tiller was gunned down," Troy Newman, Operation Rescue's president, said in a statement. "Operation Rescue has worked for years through peaceful, legal means, and through the proper channels to see him brought to justice. We denounce vigilantism and the cowardly act that took place this morning."

"President Barack Obama said he was "shocked and outraged" by the murder. "However profound our differences as Americans over difficult issues such as abortion, they cannot be resolved by heinous acts of violence," he said."

I agree with Mr. Newman and President Obama wholeheartedly. I do not condone shooting people who deserve it but have not got a fair trial (yet). I also do not regret the death of a murderer.

Note to President Obama: Regarding your comments in a recent speech: it is pretty tough to find "common ground" between people who think we should kill children for our own convenience, and people who do not.

Note to citizens of Texas: It is legal for authorized persons and Concealed Handgun Licence holders to carry concealed handguns in a church. I encourage the legal carry of defensive weapons at all times, including guns, including in church. Wear your guns people!

Chuck Schumer Is Wrong. Again. As Usual.

"I don't think anybody wants nine justices on the Supreme Court who have ice water in their veins," he said. Excuse me jerk, speak for yourself. The courts are there to say when a law has been broken and, when the law is unclear, to rely on case history to say what the law means. A judge should use the facts in a case, the law as written, and precedent, with perhaps some commentary and circumstances from when the law was passed, when making a judgement. They should most emphatically not use their eeeeeeeempathy.

Sotomayor is a racist sexist, with no care for what the Constitution says, by direct inference from her own words. If some white dude had said the things she has said, he would be lynched right there on the spot. Also, of course the Republicrats are sidestepping the issue! Their nuts are missing!

Oh, and she also would not be the first hispanic on the court, but that's long since gone right down the collectivist memory hole.

GM To File For Bankruptcy Protection On Monday.

Raise your hand if you didn't see this coming thirty billion dollars ago. (looks around) Well, it looks like the only hands up are the people with American Idle t-shirts on so let's continue.

The US Government is purchasing a controlling majority share of a publicly-traded company (73-ish percent) and intends to get rid of it "as soon as practicable" which means anything from "never" to "when we can find a way to foist off the rest of the bad debts on the taxpayers." We are going to tell them what kinds of cars to make, where, and who can make how much money within the company. Also we are giving them another $22.1B for a grand total of $52.1 BILLION FRIKKEN DOLLARS TO A COMPANY IN THE TOILET. Great.

Frikken fascism.

How Much Is One Part Per Million (PPM)?

PPM (Parts Per Million) = 1mg/L (1 milligram per liter)
PPB (Parts Per Billion) = 1ug/L (1 microgram per liter)
PPT (Parts Per Trillion) = 1ng/L (1 nanogram per liter)
PPQ (Parts Per Quadrillion) = 1pg/L (1 picogram per liter)

You can think of it this way: 1ppm is a couple of drops of water in a 2 liter soda bottle. 1ppb is a little bit of wetness in the same 2L bottle. 1ppt is imperceptibly damp, and 1ppq is basically bone-dry.

My water utility sent me a statement of contaminant/constituent levels in the drinking water, and there was a page of data and two pages of "don't worry it's all normal" explanation. I realized I had never done these maths but I knew that the levels involved were very small and my utility is looking out for me.

In case you were wondering what some normal water levels might be, here is what we're drinking in my neighborhood, and what is the maximum permissible limit (average reading / MCL). Some stuff doesn't have a max. limit or is unregulated.

Barium: 0.054ppm / 2ppm
Fluoride: 0.96ppm / 4ppm
Nitrate: 0.5ppm / 10ppm
Radium 1.25pCi/L* / 5pCi/L
Chloramine: 1.5ppm / 4ppm
Lead: 3.3ppb / 15ppm
Chloride: 44ppm / 300ppm
Copper: 0.014ppm / 1ppm
Iron: 0.067ppm / 0.3ppm
Manganese: 0.0015ppm / 0.05ppm
Sulfate: 97ppm / 300ppm
Total dissolved solids (TDS): 538ppm / 1000ppm
Zinc: 0.016ppm / 5ppm
Nickel: 0.003ppm
Magnesium: 34PPM
Ph: 6.9
Sodium: 83ppm

*pCi/L = picocuries per liter, a measure of radioactivity

This water is actually pretty clean. You'd be astonished at what comes up straight out of a well!

Saturday, May 30, 2009

Gun Laws: Not Preventing Crime. Duh?

Get it while it's still available before they take it down.

Gun laws don't stop people who want to break other laws from breaking the other laws.

This of course is common sense unless you are a Statist who considers the average Joe too incompetent to fend for himself (and of course you know just what he should do).

Hat tip to Ride Fast

Police vs. Police Homicide In New York City

When you are dressed in plain street clothes while carrying out your duties as a policeman and see a man in plain street clothes with a gun chasing another man, do you say:

a) Drop the gun! BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG

or

b) Police! Drop your weapon!

?


If you chose b) then you are obviusly not this particular New York Police Detective with four years of service under your belt.

Say it with me now: when guns are outlawed, only outlaws will have guns. And the Only Ones will shoot at the outlaws.

********

As an aside, I'll mention that there are FOUR BULLETS unaccounted for in the middle of a densely populated residential area of NYC. I guess 2 hits out of 6 shots is good enough for New York's Only Ones.

Also, they played it but you have a pretty high standard of proof if you want to make the Race Card work here. Cops shooting a man who was chasing someone else with a gun doesn't automatically scream racism to me, regardless of the level of melanin in the shooter's and shootee's skin.

YouTube To Begin Charging Hosting Fees?

It is apparent that the people at Google don't understand that everyone uses YouTube ONLY because it is free to use. When there are a dozen other sites to host your videos free of charge, and YouTube is monetized, YouTube will collapse in very short order.

They are supposed to know how to make money, so why are they talking about this? This reminds me of the United States Postal Service constantly increasing postage rates because of dwindling revenue. Note how well it's worked out for the USPS.

I'm Still Waiting For The Double-Dip.

There are a lot of people not paying close enough attention, who are getting closer and closer to calling a bottom in the US economy. Those people are forgetting something.

The current crisis was brought on by a bubble in residential real estate.

Commercial real estate saw no less of a boom. The CRE market is as heading rapidly toward as-bad-as residential. And coming up quick is a wave of refinancing that's going to crash on impossible interest rates and credit standards required to get a loan.

So good luck with that recovery there BHO. Let me know how it works out for you when you need another trillion dollars to bail out your pals in the CRE lending industry.

Friday, May 29, 2009

4 Hours Sleep Is Not Enough Anymore.

I used to burn the candle at both ends without any difficulty. Now that I have achieved the ripe old age of no-longer-a-teenager I find that going to bed at 02:00 and waking up in the 06:00 range is inadequate brain preparation for blogging. Working I can do. Thinking, no.


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My fairly weak excuse is that #2 was running fever that developed very quickly. It fell off as quickly when he hit the sack but I wanted to keep tabs on him.

Thursday, May 28, 2009

Drone Wars: Not Funny.

Mish mentions that the Japanese government is about to lift a self-imposed restriction on exporting arms. Commentators seem to think this will lead to Japan being a world leader in the newest of the new unmanned warfighting hardware.

Great. Just what we need. MORE people building killing robots. Surely Star Wars has been dubbed into Japanese by now! Somebody have a screening for the entire Japanese government before it's too late!

Felt Like Choking Somebody Out This Morning

On the *ahem* reading chair I had a look at the back cover of the most recent National Geographic Magazine.

Allstate is promoting communism. Oh, sure, they say it's for the children and for safety and everything. I'm sure they would mention apple pie and The Flag if you talked about it with their PR department on the phone.

The upshot is, to prevent the self-inflicted deaths of just over 100 teenagers per state, per year, they want to remove yet another liberty from the States and have a Federal Law mandating a graduated drivers licensing scheme.

The Safe Teens And Novice Drivers Uniform Protection Act of 2009: STANDUP (for fascism!) act. I'm going to look into it and I may be calling my Elected Heroes and telling them I'm against it.

Hey That's My Boy! Busted In Austin Makes The News.

One of the members of my church is one of two people in charge of a new local newspaper that's about 1/2 mugshots and 1/2 Austin crime stories. It was in the local news!

He's trying to get a deal through with the local Indian (dots, not feathers) mafia to let him put it in all the habib stores (400 stores in Austin) but the paper is already turning a profit.

It's pretty funny when the guys at work who don't all have the brightest bulbs for friends tell me that they know anywhere from 2 to 4 people in the paper. IF JEFF HAD A FRIKKEN WEBSITE I would direct you to it. Oh well.

Update: I should ask more often. The website is up and you can go see where to get an issue off a newsstand: BustedInAustin.com

Busted!
(Image from bustedinaustin.com)

HOLY [deleted] That Was Some Bad Traffic!

I got to work a good 50 minutes late, having left in time to be on time or a minute or two early. Traffic was *stopped* from before I get on I-35 (Grand Ave. Pkwy) to the exit ramp I use to get off the highway (FM3406). The frontage was a hair faster, so I got off and took the surface streets. . . and there was a wreck right next to me as people were trying to fit 3 cars into 2 lanes with a guardrail on the side. THEN I was about to turn on to Sam Bass Rd. and the car that was behind me thought the box truck next to me was taking off faster, but they didn't think about the lurching starts trucks make, so they were about 1.5 feet from a collision right next to me also!

AAAAAAAaaaaaaaaAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHH!

Police, fire, ambulances, hazmat crew AND a TV camera truck with its boom all the way up. For a crashed paint truck. WM says the news said it was water-based paint, but around here they're probably all worried about the three-toed gecko or whatever, so the news on my radio said they would be there until NOON at least because they won't use a fire hose and spray the [deleted] into the ditch and call it a job.

********

I wish I had my camera with me today. Anyhow, I typed this up to email to my manager, but he came in and got the in-person story straight from the horse's mouth. Oh well.

Wednesday, May 27, 2009

More On SotoMayor

I'm going to call my Elected Heroes today to remind them what we got the LAST TIME we went for the "historic" candidate.

Also, it's great to hear on the talk radio shows (but again, don't look for it on the nightly news or in the press) the hosts with long memories tearing up the "reporters" with short ones, using their own words from the Roberts nomination fight, to pick at the Sotomayor nomination.

Tuesday, May 26, 2009

Should Obese People Be Banned From High Public Offices?

There is a TON of chatter online (don't look for it on the television news though) about Sonia Sotomayor's nomination to be the next Justice on the supreme Court. Her qualifications apparently include having a vagina and brown skin, as well as being a judicial activist with heavy leftist leanings, with the ability to speak so well about her crazy that it sounds reasonable to a government school victim graduate. She was appointed as a political gesture to the Democrats by Bush 41, who subsequently had his hand bitten off by them as he tried to reach across the aisle for some give-back. Clinton put her up to the 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals with little opposition (2 Nays) from the Republicans.

At the time, Rush Limbaugh warned that she was an ultra-leftist on a rocket ship to SCOTUS. Add that to the 97% of the time that Rush is Right.

Fortunately for us, if the Republicrats have enough testicular fortitude to stand up to a woman, she just had a major case overturned by SCOTUS. But you've already heard all about all that right?

********

My take: she's too fat to be making good decisions. What's that, my statement is not controversial enough? Okay, she looks like a fruit-loop (crazy person face) also.

Look people, in America in 2009, there is NOBODY who does not understand that Fat People are doing damage to themselves. In addition, you also know that you could be less fat if you exerted your will to make it happen. But you don't.

Do we really need someone who is blatantly unqualified for the position of a SCOTUS justice, who ALSO can't even keep her own lusts in check, making policy from the bench?

You already know where I stand on that question. But what else can you expect from a President who smokes cigarrettes?

This Is Why Obama Needs The Press On His Side:

Because people want to believe it's going to be okay. I'm sure they Good Germans thought it would end up okay, too, but they got a bit of a nasty surprise didn't they? Let's just hope for the sake of the Republic, that the People are waking up to the fact that the Demicans have spoiled their economy, right at or juuuust before the 2010 election, and the bums get kicked out.

Consumer confidence jumping the most ever (more than doubling) in a reporting period means bubkis for the economy unless YOU get out there and spend your coin. And YOU won't, because YOU understand we're still in a recession, if not a full-on depression.

You want to know how relevant the consumer confidence index is to actual economic conditions? Note the extremely poor short-term correlation.

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The economy is in the tank, and is continuing to go MUCH DEEPER into the tank, but at a slower rate than it did in the previous months. This is NOT a good sign, it is a less-bad sign.

The Importance Of Routine Maintenance

A few years ago, we purchased a new MTD Yard Machines 4.5HP 21" wide-cutting lawn mower, to replace the decade-plus old Honda that my Dad gave us for a housewarming present. Even though it was about the cheapest gas mower The Home Depot had, it came with a Briggs & Stratton engine and all-metal construction.

I cleaned the air filter, maybe twice, and changed the oil once, at the recommended interval following a break-in period. It was no surprise when, recently, it started running poorly, then surging, then not running at all.

After:
  • Scraping the gunk off the air filter element and rinsing it with gasoline (wear gloves, it makes your skin stink for days)
  • Changing the BLACK oil out of the crankcase for some fresh Mobil1 (I rotated the engine manually, and the difference in internal friction was large)
  • Cleaning the heavily-fouled spark plug, including the rusty contact
  • Cleaning the matching rust out of the spark plug wire contact and spooging it up with some vaseline (a.k.a. dielectric tune-up grease)
  • Installing some new bolts to replace the ones that used to be holding the top cover and gas tank on, which literally rattled loose somewhere in the yard
  • Wrapping several layers of black vinyl electrical tape over the slits in the spark plug wire from the top cover cutting into it
  • and Cleaning several years of schmutz off of the stuff normally concealed by the cover
  • Pulling the cord several times to get the gasoline out, that was drawn in by rotating the engine by hand

    . . . it runs great, now! Thanks to Jesus for letting me be a 'handy' man.
  • Madness @ Work

    Subsequent to spending 15 minutes of fruitless searching for any sort of information or pricing guidance on a box full of circuit boards, I went to the back to toss them on a recycle pile. On the way, I spotted Company Owner #2 and asked him what pile of crap they dug them out of. His response:

    "Oh, no, those aren't worth any money."

    Oh, alrighty then. Way to not tell me that when they were put in my incoming pile with a note to see if any of them were worth money.

    Monday, May 25, 2009

    Memorial Day

    My job is shut down for the day.

    My observance of Memorial Day comprises living my life like they no longer can and remembering, with everything I do, how they gave their lives in exchange for my liberty. Also, I am telling my children about them, and thanking God for them.

    I think that's the idea.


    If you live near a military cemetary, go thank a veteran. I don't mean one who can respond.

    Sunday, May 24, 2009

    Condition Orange in Church (?!)

    I prefer to sit near the rear (main) entrance door during church services for several reasons.

    First, and the one most easily passed off as the only reason, is that an usher has, by definition, a job to do by the doors.

    Second, proximity to the egress point in case of emergency is a Good Thing. In the days when I used to fly on commercial airlines, I would try to catch the exit row, or at least be very near it. If there's something happening that requires me being out of Dodge in a hurry to keep me safe (and I shouldn't be going in to help others escape) I want to be #1 by the exit.

    Third, I like to see what's going on around me. In the front row, you can see the Pastor and that's all. In the back row, you can see everything. This is a good place for an usher to be, because I can pop tall when a woman gets up with a baby on one arm and a bag on the other, to open the door for her. It also lets me know what's going on. Usually it's nothing much but I like to know about it.

    Fourth, related to Third, is that, when I have to make an emergency PIT* stop, nobody much is distracted by my movement. I don't like to be an inconvenience or a distraction, and slipping a few feet from my seat out the door takes fewer eyes off the pastor than walking all the way back from the front row.

    But the Fifth is the main reason: I am the security detail. I sit (and sometimes stand) by the back doors so I can be at the tip of the spear. I want to be part of the QRF** in my church if somebody comes in with the intent to do grave bodily harm to my brothers and sisters in Christ.

    I jotted a quick note during church, to remind myself to make this post. I am posting it so those like me might realize that they are not the only ones who do this. Just now someone came in the back door and I turned around. I recognized them in an instant and realized I wanted to write this article. When that door opened, I went from a low-key Condition Yellow to full-on Condition Orange. If it had been somebody with a gun, I was Ready to come right over the back of my pew and give them a nasty little surprise. Then I recognized the lady coming in and went right back to Yellow, and listening to the sermon.

    That is all.

    ********

    *Pee Inna Toilet
    **Quick Reaction Force

    Come Unto Me, All Ye . . . .

    We had a new visitor in church last night. A homeless woman with a backpack and a bag of "stuff," and a dog. The dog barked at somebody when everyone was coming in before the service, so she left for a few minutes and came back. The lady sat down in the entryway at the very back of the sanctuary, and her dog lay at her side, silent and almost totally still.

    One of the women from our congregation left her husband and family, and went to sit next to her to keep her company and help her find Bible verses as the Pastor called them out.

    ********

    Our temporary church meeting place is not exactly in the best part of town so we sometimes get homeless people in the services. Sometimes they come looking for money, but church policy is to help certain charitable organizations or members in good standing, only. The last one of those had to "move her car" and she was never seen again.

    ********

    We have a new regular visitor to the church. She's a homeless woman with a (possibly stolen) shopping cart full of "stuff." She parks her cart in the back and sits near it. One of my ushers felt bad that he had forgotten her name (again). I told him, "Just blame yourself and go ask her again." After church, I saw his car stopped on the side of the road on the way out, and he was conversing with her.

    ********

    Once, the aforementioned woman brought one of her homeless friends in a wheelchair.
    A couple of times, we had an ugly, very smelly cross-dressing junkie come and sit through the services. You know what the people said to (him)her? Hi! Welcome to Trinity!

    ********

    They're not always clean
    They don't all smell very nice
    But they all need Jesus just like the rest of us.
    As long as someone wears clothes they wouldn't get arrested for, and keep peace during the services, pretty much anyone is welcome at Trinity.

    The question for you to ask yourself is, "do the people at my church value appearances more than the souls of our visitors?"

    Overheard @ My House:

    #1 has sore abs from too much playing.

    VFD: You know what the fun part is about Delayed Onset Muscle Soreness?
    #1: What?
    VFD: Sometimes it gets worse for a couple of days before it gets better!
    #1: (considers the fun for a couple of seconds)

    #1: That's not fun.

    Friday, May 22, 2009

    Democrat: A Pejorative For Someone Without Opinions

    . . . unless you count "hay, what do you guys over there want to do next?" as an opinion.

    When our nation was young and men were men, it was a grave insult to call someone a democrat. Now they say it like it's a good thing.

    Hold on there.

    A democrat is someone who lacks the conviction within himself to say: "Follow me, I know the way!" on the important issues of the day. A democrat is someone who goes after the approbation of the (increasingly) ignorant masses and seeks their pleasure, rather than telling them the right way or, in the case of an actual Leader, getting the masses to think HIS way is the right one, and getting them to think it was THEIR idea!

    We don't need more democrats. We don't have a democracy.

    ********

    If you are a Democrat looking for leadership from Washington, D.C., this is not talking about you. You want your government to Do The Right Thing and that's normal. The problem is, we currently have a crop of moral cowards in the Capitol, and your voice MATTERS. I can't count on the fingers of both hands, the number of times that major policy initiatives have been completely killed in recent months, because the People of the country made their voices heard. Until we can manage to convince some Good Men to stand up and sacrifice themselves for public service and get them elected, you MUST GET INVOLVED. If you think something should be different, go to the senate or house website and call or email your Elected Heroes.

    Your opinion does count!

    Cheney Hit The Nail On The Head!

    When all the soft-socialist Glowbama Revelers in the mainstream press say you have degraded yourself, and given the same speech you've been giving for the past seven years, and you're a big doody-head, you may rest assured you are Doing Something Right.

    Congratulations to the former Vice President for managing to get under their skin, big time, by speaking truth to power. Keep it up and we'll have to fight you to get you to accept a Presidential nomination due to a decided LACK of other "Republicans" with any kind of apparent principles to elect.

    In related news, WTF is WRONG with high-level republicrats these days? Why would they lean left and lose, then take advice from their ADVERSARIES who won by catering to their own base constituencies, to move away from the republicans' conservative base?

    Give us somebody with the message of Duncan Hunter or Fred Thompson, with the personality of . . . [deleted] just someone willing to get out there and take the stage and put his views out for public consumption! You want to see a landslide, there's the way. If you want to see another election where you lose ground to the demicans, give us squishy moderates with a single wet finger in the air. Want to lose the whitehouse again? Go for Giuliani or McCain again. McCain has all the personality of a mud pie and he's a squishy moderate and he was outspent by a significant portion of a BILLION dollars and he STILL only lost by single-digits in the polls!

    Say it with me now: "America is a Conservative, Christian nation." Yes it is, whether you see it on CNN or not. When the 80th percentile swings right every time they are given a direct say in the matter, WHAT'S THE MATTER WITH YOU that you keep giving middle-of-the-roaders and leftists for candidates? Don't you WANT to win?

    Oh, that's right, you want to be "forward-looking" *cough*socialist*coughcough*

    Liberalism is a Mental Disorder: not just the catchy title to a best-selling book by Dr. Savage.

    What A Day

    Busy, busy little worker bee. Today I had not one, not two, but THREE "aw man I got a great deal on this" items to make ready and list for sale that Did Not Work. That in itself wasn't really so bad. But the last one was at the tail end of the day and I realized that I have an uphill battle convincing the owners of the company that it's not worth their money to have me take the time to fix it.

    Spent half the day out in the warehouse, so light blogging. Better luck (for me, at work) next time.

    Thursday, May 21, 2009

    Trigger Job: U.S. Rifle, Caliber .30, M1917 (a.k.a. P17 Enfield)

    DISCLAIMER: On this page, I tell you how I improved the trigger on my own M1917 . . . and then destroyed it. If you choose to do what I tell you how to do here, you do so at your own risk. This page is presented for informational purposes only and you bear full liability for any property damage, injury, or death that may occur because you messed with your rifle. I am an amateur gunsmith (for love of the art, not for profit). I have not completed any collegiate level courses or even a mail correspondence class in gunsmithing, I just know how to reverse-engineer, then improve, simple machines like this one.

    This page was last updated on 16 December 2012 with a long-overdue status report.

    My rifle is the 'victim' of a half-decent sporterization. The stock is a replacement, and the sights and their ears have been heavily modified, as has the magazine. Some of the disassembly steps will vary between my rifle and yours. For full military stock disassembly and assembly, you can refer to the excellent instructions at Surplus Rifle.com

    In stock form, the trigger on this rifle was slightly rough. The main problem is that it seemed to have about 1/2" of creep. Keeping the crosshairs on target while pulling the trigger was a challenge, because it took so long to fire that the delay was actually a distraction from staying on target.

    Tools Required:


  • Gun cleaning stuff (for me, this means CLP, an old T-shirt cut into 3" squares, and q-tips)
  • Medium and biggish flat-head screwdrivers
  • Fine-toothed flat file
  • Fine sandpaper. I used 1200 grit and that was plenty coarse. If you have finer you can use that, but I wouldn't go any coarser than 600 grit on this job. I used CLP on wet sanding paper for the whole job.

    NOTE: Google reduces image quality on this page to speed up page loads. Click on any image to see it at full size and resolution.Before doing anything else, you need to ensure you will not be killing yourself (from this) today.

    First: Check to be sure the weapon is unloaded. Point the rifle in a safe direction. Rotate the safety lever all the way forward and lift the bolt handle. Pull the bolt all the way to the rear. You should see something like this:

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    If the rifle was loaded, it just spit out one cartridge. If there are any more, push the bolt handle forward and down again, then up and back again, until there are no more cartridges in the magazine. If your rifle still has the original magazine configuration, you can depress the magazine release catch and allow the contents of the magazine to spill out. Either way, you will not be needing those cartridges for a few hours so go ahead and put them away.

    The bolt is all the way to the rear because you just unloaded and checked the rifle, right? Good, now pull out on bolt stop lug until you can feel the bolt stop release the bolt, and pull the bolt back farther until it is free of the weapon.

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    On the military stock, there is more hardware involved, but on this sporter there are 3 screws you need to deal with. The orange one holds the trigger guard to the stock. Leave it there (unless your trigger guard rubs the trigger and you want to adjust that clearance later)

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    These two screws are the only ones you need to pull in order to release the barreled receiver from the stock

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    This is what the action of my rifle looks like when the stock is lifted off

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    A brief vocabulary lesson: If you are unfamiliar with the various parts of the 1917's action we will be discussing, study this before you read any further.

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    The stock trigger mechanism is a very simple affair. The trigger itself pivots on a pin in the sear. The trigger/sear assembly pivots on a pin also. The back of the sear holds back the cocking piece on the bolt. Pulling the trigger slides the sear away from the bolt, releasing the cocking piece and firing the weapon.

    Here is a bolt and trigger/sear group out of the rifle, to show you their relationship more clearly. As the trigger goes back, the back (heel) of the trigger pivots up, pushing the rear of the sear down.

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    The trigger pivots at this bearing point against the bottom of the receiver

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    The white rectangle is the top of the sear.

    Photobucket

    It pulls all the way into the receiver when the trigger is pulled

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    When the bolt goes to the rear and comes forward again, the cocking piece catches on the extended part of the sear. Pulling the trigger lets the cocking piece (and the sriker) forward.

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    A brief bit of Model 1917 trivia: you should under no condition try to decock the action by holding back on the cocking piece and/or pulling the trigger while moving the bolt forward, if there is a live round in the rifle. There is a VERY HIGH PROBABILITY (approaching 100%) that this will cause a negligent discharge.

    The next two shots are of the bottom of the receiver, showing the bottom of the cocking piece that catches on the sear when the bolt is back, and when the bolt is forward and the action has been fired

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    Photobucket

    All the foregoing text and photographs were to illustrate one thing for you: this trigger is very simple. It could be simpler by one pivot and lever, but that's as simple as it gets before you are talking about throwing rocks.

    The feel of the trigger action is made up of only a few components: the sear/cocking piece interface surface angles, the smoothness of the mating parts, and spring weights.

    If your primary complaint about your rifle's trigger is that it is rough, the main thing is smoothness of the parts that slide across each other. The areas of the cocking piece with orange arrows need to be flat and smooth. The angle pointed out by the red arrows needs to be straight across, 90 degrees (normal) to the vertical and longitudinal axes of the bolt, and fairly sharp.

    Photobucket

    The sear rubs on the cocking piece as shown. The surface on the back of the sear rubbing on the cocking piece must be smooth also. The angle across the top of the sear should (like the bottom/front of the cocking piece) be normal to the vertical axis as well as the longitudinal axis of the rifle, and fairly sharp.

    Photobucket

    If your complaint about your rifle's trigger is a too long "creep," the top of the sear must be made shorter. This can be overdone, but I'll get to that in a little while. I used a file and worked very carefully to reduce the top of the sear. I ended up taking off a very small amount as I'll show you later.

    If your preferences are different to mine, you may want to eliminate the first stage ("slack") in your trigger. My rifle has none, but I usually prefer a two-stage trigger if the second stage is short. You can un-pull a little slack, but you can't recall 180 grains of lead that have been sent at 2700 feet per second in whatever direction the rifle was pointing. If you want to eliminate slack, you can do one of a couple of things. First, you could put a daub of very high strength epoxy on top of the heel of the trigger. Much test-fitting would be involved, but you could use a fine file or sandpaper to reduce the height of the epoxy until the action works properly. The route I would recommend is the following. In the place where I have put a red line, through the heel of the trigger, install a tiny set-screw. Adjust as required to take out the slack. This would involve, at a minimum, a drill press, tap, and a leeeeetle tiny screw, preferably a brass or brass-tipped one.

    Photobucket

    If you don't like the over-travel after the firing pin is released you can do what I think I will do, when I finally get some free time: Drill and tap a hole in the back of the trigger guard and stick a screw in it to stop the trigger just past the point where the sear releases the cocking piece. This could be done so it was ugly and a finger-snagger, so I'll have to think about it and get back to you on that one.

    Okay, enough talk about it, let's pull the trigger out!

    Push the sear pin out and the trigger is free. I used the tip of a bullet. Depending on the condition of your rifle, you may need to use a small punch and mallet.

    Photobucket

    It all goes together again with the parts in these relative locations (in case you get lost later):

    Photobucket

    Photobucket

    If your main complaint about your rifle's trigger is that the trigger is too heavy, then you have a remedy but you may not need it. The sear is forced up into the cocking piece on the bottom of the bolt by that little sear spring. You could make the sear spring weaker/shorter by grinding or cutting it, and there would be less spring pressure on the trigger. Also your rifle could be rendered unreliable if the spring is made too weak, and the sear may not reseat against the cocking piece when the trigger is released after being pulled part-way. I elected to leave my spring unmodified (for now). If you were to install a lighter firing pin (main) spring, that would also tend to reduce the trigger weight. I say you may not need the lighter-springs remedy for trigger weight because, after you are done with the other parts, you may find the trigger acceptable.

    One word about safety and you're almost ready to get to work. The sear engages the cocking piece at a fixed angle. That angle can influence the weight of your trigger pull. That angle can make your rifle unsafe to carry loaded. If the angle is normal (90 degrees), you will have Neutral sear engagement (red lines). That is safe. If the angle is too shallow, you end up with Negative engagement (blue lines). That is not safe. A rifle with negative cocking piece/sear engagement may fire without the trigger being pulled, if it receives a shock (dropped from a tree stand) or even a bump (setting it on the floor). If the angle is too great, you end up with Positive engagement. That is safe, but makes the trigger heavier. With Positive engagement, you actually pull against the sear spring AND the main spring when you pull the trigger. Since you are out to make the trigger easier to pull, you want to have very little to no positive engagement angle.

    Photobucket

    Okay, so you're off! Go for it!

    What's that, you don't know what to do? Oh that!

    It's not very complicated. All the surfaces that rub each other need to be smoother than a baby's bottom. I used 1200 grit sandpaper and went slooooow. As mentioned previously, I also used a (fine toothed) file on the top of the sear. You have to be very careful when you are working on these parts. You must maintain sharp right angles on the corner of the cocking piece, as well as the sear. If you get corners rubbing on each other at an angle, you have trigger creep. If you have all of one corner slipping off another sharp corner all at once, you get crisp trigger action. I had to do quite a bit of material removal to flatten the bottom of the cocking piece, and then again to flatten the front of it. I had less work to do, smoothing the back of the sear. It took quite a long time (2 hours+) to remove as much from the top of the sear as i wanted. I very lightly smoothed the bearing point on top of the trigger where it rotates against the receiver, as well as the matching bearing surface of the receiver, but I think that is a low-importance spot where you just want to make sure there are no rough bits. My trigger/sear ended up looking like this:

    Photobucket

    and the cocking piece now looks like this:

    Photobucket

    . . . and the trigger is now MUCH shorter, smoother, lighter, and more crisp. One important(to me) question is: how much shorter is the trigger pull (creep) now, and how much came off the top of the sear?

    Here are the angles when the action is cocked: Red lines are the bottom of the receiver and the bottom of the sear, for reference. Note: the angle opens up to the front when my rifle is cocked:

    Photobucket

    This is how far the trigger has to go to release the firing pin, stock:

    Photobucket

    and after my work was done for the day (this took a few hours)

    Photobucket

    Now, that is not a great big difference. Due to the leverage involved, however, it took my trigger creep down by at least half. Scroll up again and compare the relative angle of the trigger in the above photographs. Those last two photos show you (indirectly) how much to take off the top of the sear. The trigger pull is shorter by the amount that the sear was made shorter, multiplied by whatever the leverage adds up to. The top of my sear was reduced by maybe a millimeter or so. That plus the slightly shallower (from flattening it) cocking piece is all the distance required to make the difference shown above. Removing too much from the sear or cocking piece* will result in a bolt that will not stay cocked. If it will not stay cocked, and the safety is working as advertised, the striker will fire when the bolt is closed. If you don't want to use the bolt handle as a trigger, go slow and test-fit often!

    You are fairly safe making the cocking piece as smooth as you like without test-fitting. When it comes to the sear, however, I recommend frequent test-fitting and test-firing the action (with NO cartridge in the firing chamber!) to check your progress. Be careful not to nick the corner you are trying to sharpen, when using a file. Be careful to keep the sandpaper flat (I used a small sanding block) when rubbing surfaces flat. A small fine sharping stone would be useful for this work if you have one. Once you have everything as flat/smooth as you like it, go back and break the corner. You don't want a razor-edge on the corners of the sear and cocking piece, because they will dull themselves with every shot, leading to inconsistent trigger action. Just hit the corner with one swipe of the paper to blunt it very slightly. Try to keep all the strokes of your file and sandpaper in the same direction as the parts rub against each other in the rifle. This is not always possible but it is good to at least mention.

    And that's all there is to it. Blue the parts if you like (I might, but my trigger is greased and I'm comfortable with the white metal for now). Your rifle now has a shorter, smoother, lighter trigger that is more crisp than it was. I left mine with a little tiny bit of creep (see above photos again) because this is a hunting rifle, not a match rifle.

    I made this page after searching high and low online, but finding only replacement triggers. I think there should be at least one decent DIY webpage up online, so I wrote it. If you don't mind modifying your own rifle, give this a try first and see if you still feel the need to spend your money on a replacement trigger. My searching also led me to the sad information that Huber and Canjar no longer produce triggers for the M1917. If you want a Timney Sportsman or a Dayton-Traister replacement trigger, they are still available for around $50 as of May 2009.

    Some people feel that it is dangerous for anyone but a Genuine Gunsmith to do this work. If you are one of those people after reading this and sleeping on it for a week, send your rifle to a 'smith. If, after reading this, you wonder what all the fuss is about, consider that you are working on deadly dangerous machinery, but go ahead if you feel yourself to be qualified. If you have any questions or suggestions as to how this page might be improved, please e-mail me at the address on the bottom of the page.


  • ******** Update:

    *After much firing, a not-entirely-unforeseen event has occurred. The edge of the cocking piece that mates with the tip of the sear has worn round. This results in a rifle that will not cock (not dangerous) or will not STAY cocked (fire at random = dangerous!). The solution is probably in a new cocking piece bought from a place like Numrich, but I'm going to see if I can keep up the "super-duper low budget" theme and come up with a work around that does not involve permanent modification to something structural.

    Those who rolled their eyes when they saw what I was getting at on this page, will of course see a new cocking piece and a Timney trigger in the near future of this rifle. We shall see.

    ********Update, the second:

    It ended up getting a new cocking piece from a seller on eBay and the rifle is back in commission.  The new cocking piece is less rough than the old one so I am probably going to leave it for a while.

    The Chinese Economic Recovery . . . Is Not One.

    China is going to eat pavement and lots of it. My gut has been calling BS on the "recovery" in China but Yves at Naked Capitalism just put it into words.

    The double-dip: wait for it.

    Col. Cooper On Education

    In his October 2005 Commentaries, the Colonel wrote:

    "Does it not seem that far too much is being made of "a college education"? Just what is meant by that? A bachelor's degree from a major institution was at one time pretty significant, but now it seems to be solely a matter of money. We find that what used to be certification of a rounded personality is now sort of a remedial trade school. When I was a boy the major universities were distinguishable from the second rate. Perhaps they still are, but that is hard to verify. We find people majoring in some sort of tradecraft before they have learned to tell the Greek myths from the Old Testament. And in an increasingly technical culture, it is difficult to tell what matters in the way of background, and perhaps it does not, but still it is nice to know what is being paid for when one is paying for "a college education."

    "When I went aboard the USS Pennsylvania at the beginning of World War II. . . . We used to kick this around on watch and we covered a lot of ground. What should a young male of 21 know and what should he be able to do? There are no conclusive answers to those questions, but they are certainly worth asking. We agreed upon "civics" or what was called American government. A young man should know how this country is run and how it got that way. He should know the Federalist Papers and de Tocqueville, and he should know recent world history. If he does not know what has been tried in the past, he cannot very well avoid those pitfalls as they come up in the future.

    "Superficialities, of course, are rife. A young man should be computer literate, and moreover should know Hemingway from James Joyce. He should know how to drive a car well - such as is not covered in "Driver Ed." He should know how to fly a light airplane. He should know how to shoot well. He should know elementary geography, both worldwide and local. He should have a cursory knowledge of both zoology and botany. He should know the fundamentals of agriculture and corporate economy. He should be well qualified in armed combat, boxing, wrestling, judo, or the equivalent. He should know how to manage a motorcycle. He should be comfortable in at least one foreign language, and more if appropriate to his background. He should be familiar with remedial medicine.

    "These things should be available before a son leaves his father's household. They do not constitute "a college education," which may or may not be a trade school. . . ."


    Even on such a brief list, the modern American youth generally fail to make the grade. . . if you find yourself wanting, it is never too late to educate yourself, whether college is involved or not. If your son is wanting, get hot on it before it is too late!

    Michael Steele Got The Message.

    Good.

    You have heard over the last couple of months, the leftists of the country (and in the 'objective' press) pushing hard for the Republican Party to either head farther left or just give up altogether.

    I heard Chairman Steele on the Laura Ingraham show this morning talking about how he was all fired up to lead the Republican party back to conservatism. Apparently all you have to do is give the party higher-ups a couple of solid months of bombardment from their base, and they start to listen. Who knew?

    The Silent Majority® has awoken a little and found that their voices do count.

    The Recession Is Really Affecting My Pocketbook Now.

    Last night I went to Walgreens to pick up some wal-itin (the generic 10mg Loratadine they carry) and I was glad I had been putting off picking up a fresh bottle.

    Now, Wal-itin is usually a pretty good value compared to Claritin or Alavert but this was really something else. They had a 90-pill bottle for $32. Right next to the price sign for that was the sign for the 150-pill bottle. The 150-pill bottle was on sale for $25. Right next to the boxes of 150-pill bottles were some boxes with 240 pills. That is, 150 pills with "90 FREE!!!!1!". There was no price for the 240-pill bottle. The cashier informed me that the 240ct. was the same price as the 150ct.

    That is, instead of $0.35/pill, they're $0.10/pill. Hey, thanks Mr. Recession!

    Wednesday, May 20, 2009

    Madness @ Work

    You know it's coming up on Performance Review Time when . . .

    Yesterday the message was, "work faster,"

    and

    Today the message is, "higher quality even if it's slower."

    Welcome to mid-level management.

    California Apparently Not Completely Full Of Fools (Yet). Good Job.

    Propositions 1A through 1E all failed.

    Good.

    Now California is looking at a tens-of-billions of dollars budget shortfall again, still, again.

    If you live in California, call your Elected Heroes and tell them to get out the scissors and start cutting stuff out of the budget. There is No Other Way to set your house in order.

    Tuesday, May 19, 2009

    News Flash: Israel Still Kicking Hamas Booty

    Hamas' attacks have been scaled back somewhat subsequent to Israel giving them what for a few months ago. The faithful muslims militants have not been permanently put down, however, much to the discredit of Israel.

    But Israel has not stopped swatting the flies. A rocket launched by a faithful muslim coward terrorist militant Hamas fighter landed in an Israeli city. Israel responded by bombing tunnels and weapons facilities used by their enemy.

    Good.

    You HAVE BEEN Cheated!

    A caller to the Neal Boortz radio show said something interesting just now. When she and her husband figured out the quality of education they could provide their children AT HOME using the Abeka curriculum, they felt as if they had been cheated*.

    YOU [deleted] HAVE BEEN CHEATED!

    You were forced by parents who were either ignorant or cowardly into a government-mandated schooling system. The system was set up by industrialists interested NOT in education, but desirous of producing good little workers who wouldn't aspire too much for better lives.

    The quality of your homeschooled childrens' education is going to be so far superior to the education they would have received at the "public school**" down the street, it will not even be worthwhile to compare them.

    An ugly thought just occurred to me. In Cambodia, they oppressed (read: murdered, very often) people with glasses because they were assumed to be literate and therefore not close enough to the common man. Professionals of all stripes were made to work fields. In America, before/during/after the coming revolution, what will be the fate of those who received an actual education at their parents' homes? These days, homeschooled people are increasingly accepted as "at least as good as" gub'mint schooled people. In some areas, they have forced the State to recognize their education and allow them into colleges with a homeschool diploma. Will that recognition be removed? Will your credentials be revoked because the first one is a homeschooling?

    We'll see.

    ********

    *I have the same feeling. I am trying, ever so slowly due to the inconveniences of Life, overcoming my uneducation in the Houston area government schools.

    **No it is NOT a PUBLIC school. If it were public, anyone could go. Compare to a public park or public street. The school is built, maintained, funded and staffed by the government. The curriculum is dictated by the government. It is mandated that you send your children there, BY the government. It is a GOVERNMENT school.

    The mustlims Terrorists Have Won.

    At least partially, anyway.

    Sebastian at Snowflakes in Hell forgot he had a loaded magazine in his bag when he went to fly home from the NRA Convention.

    The TSA people were more calm about it than he was.

    He, a liberty-minded U.S. American, thought he was going to go to jail but Right Now. For carrying a few bits of stuff in his bag that are useless without another machine he didn't have with him.

    Massad Ayoob once wrote an article about an America that was on its way to this point, where his main complaint was that the people at the counter were engaging in racial profiling when he went to fly with his gun on his hip. He was assured that wasn't what they were doing, and allowed to fly. Armed.

    As it should be.

    You know how many planes would have been in buildings and fields on 9/11/01 if the passengers had not yielded their liberty for security? Zero. You know how many of those passengers got security in exchange for their liberty? Zero.

    They got DEAD is what they got.


    You know how many times I've flown since the "for your saaaaafety" "No Pointy Objects" regulations came into effect? Zero. I am offended at the inference and refuse to subject myself to it.

    ********

    Hat tip to Uncle.

    Monday, May 18, 2009

    He Never Said "No" To Me Before.

    I set #3 down on the floor and he toddled by the coffee table. He noticed the bottle of hot sauce on the table, picked it up and carried it over to me. I asked if he wanted it, and told him it was Spicy. I asked again if he wanted it while he was processing "Spicy" and the appearance of the bottle.

    He shook his head and said, "No."

    As I was writing this, I heard my Darling Wife say, "Do you want this?" and his response came again, "No." She laughed and called out to me that he had shaken his head 'no' again.

    He sure learned that lesson.

    The lesson, of course, is that when Mama says it's Hot and Spicy, but opens something interesting-looking and hands it to you anyhow when you insist, do NOT pour it into your mouth.

    I Knew It! It Only LOOKED Like I Was Slacking Off!

    From Gizmag:

    When you are not thinking about anything consciously, your brain is hard at work behind the curtain.

    Thus once again people with doctoral degrees in stuff I never hoi'd of confirm what I knew already. Neat.

    What really gets me, though, is that because they don't understand the body they assume the lesser must be the accurate description of it. They thought the high-falutin' parts of the brain shut down when we daydream. Turns out, we just stop paying conscious attention to their working. Sorta the same way we already knew the brain was active during dreams . . . ?

    Flexible, Tiny, Powerful Batteries: Coming Right Up!

    From Gizmag:

    Flexible: check
    Ultra-thin: check
    Charge in minutes: check
    10-20x more powerful than coin cell batteries: check

    NanoEnergy batteries. Wow.

    Sunday, May 17, 2009

    A Pair Of Cardinals Walk Into A Bar And Say . . .

    We have a deck behind our house. It has a jasmine vine creeping up one off the deck roof corner support posts.

    A pair of cardinals has taken up residence in the jasmine. They built their nest in the thickest part of the foliage, almost as high up as they could be and still fly in and out under the deck's roof. Their nest is looking almost complete now. Sometime soon, with a bit of luck, we'll have to be shushing the children to allow Mrs. Cardinal to tend to her eggs in peace.

    The children and I were playing outside and eating watermelon while my Darling Wife fried up some tacos for lunch. I've grown accustomed to her voice, so I heard when Mrs. Cardinal started peeping at us to leave her house alone. I took the children and dogs inside. Sure enough, a few minutes later, our little guest was back at work putting up wallpaper in the nursery.

    Photobucket

    Parade Magazine Getting Schooled.

    Curt has pointed out an amusing item. Parade Magazine put out an article about (horrors) inanimate objects that save lives on a daily basis not being limited to purchase by the Only Ones. Then they threw in a couple of bones for those who would have whined about one-sided reporting and asked a poll question:

    Should sales of body armor be regulated?

    When the Captain of A Crew of One found it, the results were heavily trending toward removing your ability to protect yourself from gangbangers. The gun blogs must have got hold of it though, because as of right now it's 3/4 against regulation at 1.4 million votes cast.

    Haha.

    Friday, May 15, 2009

    Baby Poo: You Win Some, You Lose Some.

    Warning: this post discusses human defecation. Those with light stomachs may want to skip it.

    After #3 was finished eating a snack in his high-chair, I got the feeling he wanted to go potty. I took and put him on the pot and almost immediately he started breaking wind and making deposits in the bowl. I checked his diaper and was pleased to find that he had even held his water until he sat on the toilet. He pushed and poo'd until he was done, then made the almost-words for being done.

    The boy is not quite a year-and-a-half old. I was proud as could be.

    After supper, we all got busy with other things and nobody noticed that he was busily playing while filling his diaper with a foul-smelling pile of you-can-imagine.

    Oh well. He is a baby, after all!

    Impressive DIY: Homebuilt AR Lower Receiver

    Want to build an AR but can't afford a lower receiver? Have a shop full of machine tools? Have no intention of selling the receiver when you're done? Why not spend $7 in Aluminum and make your own!

    Wow.



    (hat tip to Uncle)

    Austin Fire Chief Is Racist!

    The AFD Chief Chick is a RACIST. There, I've said it right off the bat.

    There are a pair of Assistant Chiefs resigning. There are more than a pair of next-in-line white firemen fully qualified for their positions. A person who believed in Martin Luther King's Dream would advance the men who were next in line for advancement without consideration for the color of their skin.

    Hold on there.

    The outgoing Assistant Chiefs are one hispanic and one black. Therefore, because Fire Chief Rhoda Mae Kerr has no desire to share in MLK's Dream, she feels a requirement to make the Department "more progressive" (her words, I heard it with my own ears) by advancing a lower-ranked, less-qualified hispanic and black man to fill each position. She wants to advance them, not on the content of their character (which I do not impugn, they may be fine men), not on their qualifications for the positions (which they may be ready for, in a couple of years), but rather only because of the color of their skin.

    She is "passing over" a bunch of White Guys because they are white. How is this not bald racism? If she passed over a bunch of black guys to advance a white, Nelson Lender would jump her [deleted] in a minute, but not a peep out of that low-life ACLU spokesmouth when some brown people are getting preferential treatment!

    Okay, so the non-racist, fair-minded individuals as well as the racist whites are upset. What to do about them? Oh, well, I guess since we are REALLY TIGHT on the budget we'll make another Assistant Chief position so we can throw one of the white boys a bone.

    Where is the incentive now for the non-'minority' firemen to strive for excellence and study hard, if their hopes of high-level advancement depend not on their knowledge, skills, ability, and job history but only on their skin color?

    ********

    Raise your hand if you can think of some other societies that advance people on the basis of their "race". Lesse, there's Zimbabwe, there was South Africa, There was America SEVENTY YEARS AGO (how is this progressive, again?) and let's never forget who ELSE liked to advance (or kill) people on the basis of their "race."

    YES I went there! My question is how did SHE go there?

    Thursday, May 14, 2009

    I Hate It When They Crunch!

    I just smished a spider that was running across the wall in my house.

    Its little exoskeleton crushed in that disgustingly tactile and audible way.

    ::shudder:: ugh.

    Oh well, at least it was smaller than a cockroach. They break when you crunch them, which is really gross.

    Excuse Me, YRC?

    YRC Worldwide, a huge trucking company, wants $1,000,000,000 of MY dollars to relieve it of stressful finances brought on by lame-brained contracts written during and for the Good Times.

    No.

    Capitalism would have it go like this:

    Step 1: Write asinine contracts
    Step 2: Lose business during the Depression
    Step 3: Go bankrupt
    Step 4: Competitors pick up the shards of your market share

    But the [deleted] Communists want it to go like this:

    Step 1: Write asinine contracts
    Step 2: Lose business during the Depression
    Step 3: Steal a billion dollars
    Step 4: ???
    Step 5: Profit!

    The Great Awakening of VFD

    The question has arisen: When was my Great Awakening, and what prompted it? As a now-like-minded individual said: "when I started paying attention."

    You would have to have been reading my blog since nearly the beginning, but I have hinted at it before.

    As a Yout' I was government-educated and didn't think much about anything in particular except the task at hand. I stayed in Condition White and considered my income tax "refund" a benefit, free money from the government. A decade ago, I had conservative leanings but might not have been able to tell you why, aside from the biblical arguments. I allowed us to charge whatever we didn't have cash for, figuring to make payments on it all, sometime in the unforseeable (past next month!) future. About that last bit: we (my Darling Wife and I combined) were pulling down $6,000 a month with a $700 rent and no bills to speak of, so when that ended we were used to just buying whatever and continued to do so after the money dried up.

    Somewhere in the 3-4 years-ago timeframe, I woke up. I think what happened is that years of listening to (evil Rightwing Terrorist) Talk Radio finally got me informed enough about current envents that I could begin forming educated opinions about the shenanigans going on around me. I began to realize that life is indeed "nasty, brutish, and short" and that I could have at least some say in what happens to me and my country.

    Those who have been there will understand when I say that, having begun to actually think about the world beyond the tip of my nose, I got a desire to know more about it. I read books, websites, listened to more radio talk shows, and talked to people I knew. My opinion of the world steadily got worse, and my knowledge of my own rights and responsibilities, as well as my ability to fend for myself, steadily increased. Then, as mentioned in the above-linked article, I bought a fighting rifle and began to understand that a man might have to use one.

    Those who have been there will understand when I say that, realizing I had acquired a new set of responsibilities with that weapon, I set about considering the circumstances that would get me to use it against another human being. These deliberations are sobering. Combine them with continuing self-education into politics, history, and current events, and I finally started this blog to avoid driving my Darling Wife to distraction talking about my opinions. She agrees with me most of the time, but I can get rather . . . well, if you just want to cook supper I guess you might say, "annoyingly strongly opinionated."

    My convictions have not changed. They have become stronger. When you start from the worldview promulgated in the Bible, exposure to truth and reality should only serve to reinforce what you already know.

    Now I am a constant listener to talk and news. I can hardly get enough of knowledge of current events. I can form my own opinions though, so I can't stand watching the news on the alphabet networks. When I would like to be buying more books, guns, and supplies, we are having instead to live on a much smaller portion of my pay, to pay off debts. I never was my job but now I do have an avocation: I like and am good at teaching others about small arms and their use; I enjoy a lively debate about politics, and I am a happy Father and a church Usher.

    So there it is. What do you say to that, my friends?

    ********

    Edit: I've been pondering this for a few days and it occurs to me that I might have been on my way to waking up MUCH earlier. In boot camp (1996) I defied a direct order in front of my whole company (standing up for myself vs. the Greater Good) and before that by a couple of years I was just-shy-of taunting Crazy New Daddy as he chased me around the island in our kitchen trying to lay his hands on me.

    I guess I've always been a bit of a macho and ready to stand up for myself. Just in the last few years, it's come to my attention that I need standing up-for in politics and gunz as well. Hmm. Have to think about this one some more. . . .

    ABLGS: Automatic Baby Landing Gear System

    #3 is not very fond of the feel of grass on his bare feet. I went to set him down to go walk to Mama (ordinarily, he'll do almost anything to Go To Mama) and as he got lower to the ground a curious thing happened.

    Have you ever seen an airplane whose landing gear retract by moving forward? Yes, well, his legs did the same thing. The little feet got about 4" from the grass and stopped traveling downward while the rest of him was still descending. In Baby Body Language, he said "There is no way in H.E. Double-toothpicks I am touching that stuff with my feet." Bemused, I raised him up to waist height again. His feet lowered to maintain height above the grass until his legs were straight down.

    Lowering him a second time and then raising him, his feet retracted and extended again. And a third time. Later in the evening, he had just gone down the slide in the backyard and didn't feel like walking around again. I went to set him down after catching him at the foot of the slide, and he raised his feet as I lowered him, even to the point that his feet were higher than his bum! So I set him down on the grass, with his little legs in full contact with it. THEN he popped tall and walked over to Mama at the slide's ladder again.

    Maybe you had to be there, but that's funny!

    The Difference Between Us & Them.

    At The Smallest Minority there is a long-ish post about the difference between the pro- and anti- RKBA crowds.

    Go. Read.

    Col. Cooper On Pistol Stances, Weaver vs. Isosceles

    In his July 2005 Cooper's Commentaries, he wrote:
    "There is a great deal of foolish discussion bouncing around concerning the proper arm position for serious pistol work. Jack Weaver's classic contribution consists in power control. If you crank that left elbow down and pull positive counter-pressure, you dampen recoil very considerably. If you use mechanical means of reducing recoil, and if you lay great importance upon very rapid bursts of succeeding shots, this may matter, but in the overall picture, I do not believe it does. It hardly matters whether you use the Weaver Stance or the Isosceles "with both arms straight" as long as you get hits, and those hits should be delivered with a major powered sidearm under controlled conditions. The argument is silly, and I wish it would go away."

    Considering that he was a master shooting instructor, it almost goes without saying that, in order to be able to get those hits, you must train to get hits.

    With no less an authority than Jeff Cooper agreeing with me, I consider this matter to be Officially Closed.

    You're welcome.

    We Threepers Have Some Company

    In New Zealand, they have a gun registry. Civilians with small arms are required by law to register them with the government. The rate of compliance is un-knowable. The original plan (probably necessary to getting it passed at all) was to have "your guns are yours for life" lifetime registrations. Then somebody broke some unrelated laws and the country switched to "oh wait, they're yours for 10 years" decade-long registrations. Who would have ever guessed that was coming. Note: the alternatives are registration of your weapons, abandoning them to the custody of the state, or becoming an outlaw by doing the same thing from the day before the law was enacted, to the day after.

    Anyway, today, many years after they went from lifetime to 10-year registrations, there is a reported rate of 22% non-compliance with the new 10-year registration law.

    22%.

    That 22% was the difference the gun-banners saw coming when they got this legislation passed in the first place. Those 22% would have prevented passage of the original legislation, I gay-rohn-tee. American Moderates, take note: The gun control crowd got a gun registry put into law in that country because it was innocuous; you just register your guns, that's all. Just once, ever in your life, that's all. The law was changed later to Register them each Decade OR ELSE. The gun control advocates are lobbying for three-year registrations now. If they are successful in getting 3-year registration terms, next they will go for one year. Following that, it will be zero-year and New Zealand will follow Australia into higher per-capita rates of violent crime subsequent to a complete gun BAN. That's what we call a "slippery slope" my friend.

    In the linked NZ Herald article, they quote victim-disarmament advocate Philip Alpers as saying "The police really have no idea of how many guns are out there" as if that were a bad thing. The police have no business knowing how many guns are out there, just like they have no business knowing how many drill presses or hand held screwdrivers are out there. Guns are tools. To get in trouble with one, you have to do other things that were already illegal before the first gun control measure was ever passed.

    Hat tip to Uncle.

    Update: Not So Outrageous After All.

    Xavier has an update on the "dude stopped for a Gadsden Flag bumper sticker" story I mentioned earlier.

    Turns out, not so much. He got stopped for a (so far unspecified) violation just like anyone else, and turned out to be a mouthy-with-attitude guy (you know the type). That's why the stop took so long.

    Madd Props Yo! to Xavier for his efforts to root out the truth. Updates will probably be forthcoming yet, so keep an eye on his reportage.

    California Wants MORE Of Your Money

    As a reward for being such fools when it came to managing their own money, California's government now wants even MORE of your money. Sorry, I'm still against it. As king of the world, I declare California bankrupt and all union contracts Null and Void.

    Oh, wait. . .

    Of course, it would be easier to fix their budget problems if California were allowed to cut its STATE costs by the FEDERAL government.

    Wednesday, May 13, 2009

    Madness @ Work!

    FNG's status here at work has been downgraded. Conversations about him have degraded from "So Dumbass _______" to "Fucking Numbnuts _______"

    (where _______ is the latest thing he did).

    He was screwing up at one assignment, so he was given another. He said he could do IT stuff, so he was set to building computers. He got 3 out in a full 8-hour shift. That would be, 3x $40 computers.

    Okay, so one of our guys bought one. He went to have a peek under the hood and found that . . . the case was super-glued shut. No mention of this in the ad, of course. Our man who bought this one was perturbed, but happy that we didn't get a nuclear-negative feedback comment from some unsuspecting eBay customer. He went and looked at another of those PCs and showed WM that it appears to have been taped shut.

    Just wow. WM must really like this guy for him to still be around this long. We'll see how long this one lasts. . . Company Owner #1 was there when the superglue was discovered. . . .

    Be Careful What You Wish For

    You just might get it. Story reported on the radio news this morning:

    A pervert bought a video of hardcore porn, showing other peoples' wives getting . . . well, involved in adultery.

    While watching it, he recognized one of the women on the video. That would be his wife. And some dude he knows.

    So of course the logical thing is to go after the dude with a butcher knife. Or something. Oh well.

    Tuesday, May 12, 2009

    They GIVE You Money, Why Would You NOT Do This?

    We joined Costco a while back, and signed up for their American Express credit card. There is a reason I have been using the AMEX for buying pretty much everything:

    They are GIVING US FREE MONEY!!!!!1!!!

    Sure, there is an interest rate in effect. . . if you don't pay within the grace period. We're "deadbeats" - we pay the bill in full monthly - so we're not paying finance charges.

    Okay Mr. Wizard, how much money are we talking here?

    3% on gas at non-grocery-store gas stations. 3% eating out. 2% traveling, and 1% on everything else.

    Year-to-date, on $2200 of qualified purchases that we were making anyway, that has netted us $24. For the privilege of keeping our money in our checking account for a longer period, earning whatever meager interest rate Chase is paying on checkings these days.

    Oh Well Nevermind Then.

    If you could be trailed by detectives in the course of an investigation without a warrant, they can put a GPS tracking device on your car, without raising any valid concerns about your privacy, regardless of where you drive including your own property.

    Alright then I guess that's fine. After all, I'm innocent so I have nothing to fear!

    ********
    My apologies to whomever linked this on their website where I first saw it. I done did fergot your name!

    BATFE (we hope you don't) Notice of Seized Property

    The ATF recently put out a seized property notice to let you know when and how you could get your stuff back.

    They did NOT put it on their website. They did not make it available in electronic form at all. They printed it up in the Wall Street Journal. To respond, you need to write to them. Through the mails. You have 14 days to hear about it and respond. Good luck.

    David Codrea spent four hours doing what the BATmen could have done in four minutes, and his Examiner column reminded me of a section of the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: (when Arthur Dent's house was about to be demolished to make way for a highway, at the same time as the same thing was going to happen to his planet, unbeknown to him)

    Mr. Prosser said, "You were quite entitled to make any suggestions or protests at the appropriate time, you know."

    "Appropriate time?" hooted Arthur. "Appropriate time? The first I knew about it was when a workman arrived at my home yesterday. I asked him if he'd come to clean the windows and he said no, he'd come to demolish the house. He didn't tell me straight away of course. Oh no. First he wiped a couple of windows and charged me a fiver. Then he told me."

    "But Mr. Dent, the plans have been available in the local planning office for the last nine months."

    "Oh yes, well, as soon as I heard I went straight round to see them, yesterday afternoon. You hadn't exactly gone out of your way to call attention to them, had you? I mean, like actually telling anybody or anything."

    "But the plans were on display..."

    "On display? I eventually had to go down to the cellar to find them."

    "That's the display department."

    "With a flashlight."

    "Ah, well, the lights had probably gone."

    "So had the stairs."

    "But look, you found the notice, didn't you?"

    "Yes," said Arthur, "yes I did. It was on display on the bottom of a locked filing cabinet stuck in a disused lavatory with a sign on the door saying 'Beware of the Leopard.'"

    Rush Has Class, That's Why.

    At Hot Air there is speculation as to why Limbaugh did not respond to Sykes.

    One word: Disdain.

    Monday, May 11, 2009

    Next Step: You Can't Buy Any More Guns. Or Sell Them.

    Because of course, you are might be a terrorist.

    You must be banned from transferring firearms.

    Making you an outlaw with a gun?

    (good job voting for Republicans, everybody, they're for upholding our rights!)

    Man Detained For Having Extremist "Gadsden Flag" Bumper Sticker




    Because the DHS said he might be a Terrorist (not the kind that causes "man-caused disasters" the kind that causes new U.S. Constitutions) . . .

    He had a bumper sticker on his car, both expressing an opinion and acknowledging the history of our nation. Or, in the words of the local brownshirts police, he "had a subversive survivalist bumper sticker on his car"

    And he got ARRESTED for it! Sure, sure they let him go. Eventually. After all, he's innocent and therefore has nothing to fear, right?

    ********

    I was riding with my Darling Wife and mentioned this story, and told her it made me want to make 1/2 the back of my car a Gadsden flag, cover half the trunk with the text of the US Constitution's First Amendment and Texas Constitution's Article 1, Section 8, and half with my blog address. She didn't think it was a very Good Idea, and not just because of the maths involved.

    ********

    Update: Hat tip to Xavier for primary research on this story. Turns out to be less outrageous than first reported.

    Good News For The Hubble Space Telescope

    I am listening live to the launch audio right now. I got to hear the engines light up, which was pretty cool.

    The Space Shuttle Atlantis has launched on a mission to service the Hubble Space Telescope. She is to be fitted with new batteries and a pair of new cameras. This is the first service the telescope has seen in 7 years.

    NASA considers this mission dangerous enough that Endeavor is on a launch pad on standby, in case a rescue is called for.

    For those who are not paying attention, the Hubble's future has been in doubt recently, and there was talk of decommissioning it. From this mission I gather that she is set for at least several more years of service. Good.

    You Didn't Think You Were A Criminal-Minded Individual.

    . . . but you were obviously mistaken. Nevermind the death threats from people who get by in life doing drive-by shootings. You want body armor? You're a killer, that's what you are. A regular powder keg.

    (found via Say Uncle.

    International Socialists Destroying California. WOW!

    The Service Employees International Union (read: international socialists) are destroying California, much the same way that the United Auto Workers destroyed GM and Chrysler.

    The Governator of California and the unionized home health care workers in CA AGREED to get a budget-ameliorating pay cut for all the union workers in question. They agreed to it, as part of a (futile) desperate attempt to prevent the bankruptcy of the State of California. The SEIU [deleted]s went to Il Presidente Obama and cried about this agreement.

    Il Presidente has agreed now that what is needed is to withhold $6.8 Billion of Federal Stimulus Money from California, until they rescind the appropriate legislation and raise the union's pay levels again.

    WOW!


    The level of chutzpa involved here is just staggering. I would comment on the federal encroachment into state financial affairs, but the I'm actually FOR not giving out money like it comes from nowhere for free. (update 5/14/09: I was against the idea when it came up originally, too)


    Just wow.

    ********

    This is not the change you were hoping for

    Sunday, May 10, 2009

    Mothers Day 2009

    My Darling Wife very happily, and repeatedly, explained that it was the best Mothers' Day Present Ever. #2 asked if she wanted us to do it again next year, and I told him she wanted us to do it again next week.

    When we pulled in the driveway, My Darling Wife asked permission to go to our next door neighbor's house, to deliver an invitation to Tuesday's Ladies Meeting. She asked because a) it meant I would have to get the kids to unass the ship by myself, and b) requesting to be let to drop off a sheet of paper is the same thing as asking to go over there for the rest of the evening and chit-chat, so c) that means I would be getting supper ready for #1 and #2, and feeding #3, getting them bedtime-businessed, and tucked in, by myself.

    Off she went.

    The house was messy. I set #1 and #2 to running (literally running) around, picking up the stuff off the floor, while watching out for #3, who was also running around, just because Brother and Sister were. I cleaned the kitchen and tidied up our bedroom, while #1 and #2 picked up the living room, dining room, and both their bedrooms. I called my Darling Wife to remind her she wanted to go to bed early tonight and she vaguely said something about coming home soon. I fed #3 and put him down, and had #1 and #2 read books in her room while I whomped up some supper. I called my Darling Wife and she reluctantly agreed to peel herself away from whatever chick flick they were watching next door, long enough to eat her eggs, which were declared by Yours Truly to be getting cold.

    She left a house discouragingly messy with no supper cooked. She came home to a clean house and supper on the table. I done good!

    Rust? On My Gun?

    #1 asked for a gun lesson tonight toward the end of supper, so I happily gave a short lesson on the difference between long guns and hand guns, and they (#1 and #2) recited The Four Rules for the umpteenth time. I pulled out a couple of cartridges from my sidearm and talked about SJHPs. Then I gave a lesson on disassembly of a Glock pistol. I got the thing field-stripped and gave it an inspection. There, on the right-rear lug of the receiver, was a spot of rust!

    On my gun! This is unprecedented! It looked for all the world like a drop of liquid had gone down into the crack between the frame and slide, and just stayed on the steel lug for who-knows how long. It was surface rust, fortunately. The last time I had this pistol apart was a few weeks ago after the schutzenfest. The rust wiped clean, then I slathered the whole lug with oil.

    I think what might have happened is that, one middle of the night, I set down my cup of water on the nightstand a little too hard and it splashed a solitary drop onto the pistol next to my alarm clock. That drop went un-noticed and was allowed to sit for up to a few weeks.

    Inspect your guns, people!

    Friday, May 8, 2009

    Morbidly Obese People Want "Rights" (read: special priveleges)

    This post is entirely too long, but it comprises a point-by-point response to a Reuters article that is entirely too long. Sorry about that. Complain to them. In a futile attempt to make this shorter on your screen, the article text and mine are the same width. My comments are in this color. I have also inserted inline links to some of the things Reuters didn't bother hot-linking, and compressed some of the article to cut down on the number of one-sentence "paragraphs."

    Response to Obesity becoming U.S. civil rights issue for some, By Edith Honan, Monday, Apr 27, 2009

    NEW YORK (Reuters) - Kate Harding has spent most of her life on one diet or another, losing weight but always gaining it back. Determined to improve her quality of life, she joined a fast-growing group of anti-dieting activists promoting overweight people's civil rights.

    Lacking the inclination to continue down the hard road toward self-improvement, she gave up and decided to join those who want special consideration from governments and companies -against you- to accommodate her fault. We're off to a great start, let's see where it goes.

    Launching an anti-dieting blog called Shapely Prose, Harding and other fat-acceptance advocates online -- calling themselves the fat-o-sphere -- are also educating one another about how to improve overweight people's health.

    Fat people can be in great shape, aside from the shape they are in. That said, many of them are a deep fried hamburger away from sudden death. I'm for everyone being healthy, but why get all bound up in how fatassed you are, to the extent that you want me to tell you that you are not a freak show?

    She and other bloggers with names like FatChicksRule and Big Liberty say society's "war on obesity" makes overweight people hate their bodies and suffer from low self-esteem.

    If your body is a ginormous fat-body that can't fit into a chair designed for people who are "merely" twice their optimal body weight, you should hate that. There is no "war on obesity" there is a "bunch of people who know you could do better for yourself" and you are included in their number, which is why your self-esteem is low. Respect is gained through achievement. Lack of respect comes from lack of achievement. If you daily fail to do what you know you could, to make yourself less overweight, you will have low self-esteem. Don't blame society, blame yourself.

    "Being fat doesn't make me lazy or stupid or morally suspect," said Harding, 34, of Chicago, who also has written a book, "Lessons from the Fat-o-Sphere."

    Being fat is a pretty strong indicator that you are lazy, stupid, or morally suspect. It is not definitive, but it's pretty close.

    "The message we're promoting is health at every size."

    Good. Health is good. Forcing an airline to make less money because they had to install fat people chairs and lower a plane's capacity to carry large numbers of people, is not health related.

    Her blog entries criticize dieting obsessions and ponder coverage of weight issues in the mainstream media.

    Obsessions are bad. Healthy food intake is good. They do not need to go together.

    Since launching her blog, Harding, who says she is 5 foot 2 inches tall and about 195 pounds (88 kg), says her body image has improved. But she admits wearing a bathing suit in public "can still throw me for a bit of a loop."

    Congratulate yourself long enough for being wrong and you'll feel better about it. Right. Until you take a peek at reality and realize how fat you truly are.

    Fat-acceptance advocates are starting to organize to promote anti-bias laws, encourage tolerance in health care and the workplace and help retailers recognize the profit potential of catering to plus-size customers.

    Profit potential? The radio news last week put out a story about fat people in UK being upset that they have to pay more for clothes with more cloth in them! How is taking in less money per unit of material profitable?

    "People are just beginning to think about being empowered," said Lynn McAfee, director of medical advocacy at the nonprofit Council on Size and Weight Discrimination. "The emphasis has just been 'lose weight and everything will be fine,' and it's becoming really clear that people aren't losing weight," she said. "So we want to shift the emphasis to making us as healthy as we can be at whatever weight we are."

    Sorry, I'm going to have to throw a flag on this one. What you want is to shift the emphasis to forcing people not to treat you like the sack of flab you know yourself to be. You want us to assuage your conscience for you.

    Activists say the movement is beginning to amass some victories, from larger seat belts in cars to a decision by the Supreme Court in Canada that obese and disabled people traveling on airplanes can't be forced to buy a second seat.

    Larger seat belts help me move televisions safely. If you are so close to the steering wheel that the airbag can't go off, but you think it's okay because you can strap yourself in, you have another thing coming. Also, the government of Canada has never been real clear on that whole "property rights and capitalism" thing, so you're not winning any points with US Americans there, either, you fascist.

    The Fox television network is developing a reality show featuring "average looking" people called "More to Love," billed as a "dating show for the rest of us."

    People will watch this show for the same reason they watch car crash shows. I don't watch Fox much, and this is another reason not to.

    The National Association for the Advancement of Fat Acceptance, a "civil rights" group formed in 1969, has found new life as fat-acceptance advocates gain force online. There are now more than 50 fat-acceptance blogs and more than a dozen books promoting the idea, from Linda Bacon's "Health at Every Size" to Wendy Shanker's "The Fat Girl's Guide to Life." There are even romance novels featuring plus-sized characters with names like "Dangerous Curves Ahead." (by Pat Ballard)

    Does anyone else notice a recurring theme of conflating "healthy at any size" with "forcing other people to accommodate my big butt?"

    But the dominant view remains that overweight people should be focused on losing weight.

    That's good, if it's true.

    Some two-thirds of Americans are considered overweight or obese. Cities across the country have declared wars on obesity, calling it a costly public health crisis that increases the risk of heart disease, type two diabetes and certain cancers. Obesity-related health care cost upward of $100 billion a year, research shows.

    "He ain't heavy, he's my brother!" If you can fit in a regular chair, this "war" is not directed at you. Those who require a wider-than-normal hospital bed, will be using it. This should not be such a hard concept to grasp. Excuse the rest of us for not wanting to foot the bill for your diseases that could have been prevented by your NOT doing something you like to do.

    PERVASIVE DISCRIMINATION

    There are no U.S. laws prohibiting weight discrimination, and only one state, Michigan, has an anti-weight bias law. Legislatures in Massachusetts and Nevada have taken up size-bias bills, but similar efforts have failed in recent years.

    You say that like it's a bad thing. You keep using that word, but I think it does not mean what you think it means. Discriminate: TRANSITIVE VERB: "1. To perceive the distinguishing features of; recognize as distinct. . . 2. To distinguish by noting differences; differentiate. . . 3. To make or constitute a distinction in or between. . . . "

    Weight discrimination is pervasive, said Rebecca Puhl, director of research at Yale University's Rudd Center for Food Policy and Obesity.

    Yes. People can tell the difference between the skinny and the morbidly obese. And?

    An "obesity wage penalty" -- larger employees getting paid less regardless of job performance -- is widespread, and research shows overweight people are less likely to land a job or be promoted than a non-obese worker, she said.

    That's like saying women make less than men. Sure, somebody who is bed-ridden due to being overfat will contribute their $0 and pull down the average. Somebody who stays home with her beloved children will contribute her $0 and pull down the average. And?

    "We do need to fight obesity, but not obese people," said Puhl. "Individuals ... who are discriminated against because of their weight are more likely to engage in unhealthy eating behaviors and avoidance of physical activity."

    If you fight obese people because they are obese, that's dumb. If you eat a gallon of iced cream because somebody called you fat, that's dumb, too.

    Anecdotal evidence also suggests overweight people avoid trips to the doctor out of fear of being mocked.

    Either get over a fear of something that won't happen, grow thicker skin, or get a different doctor.

    According to NAAFA, about 70 percent of overweight and obese women have experienced bias from doctors. Others complain of being turned down by health-insurance companies.

    Your gynecologist has a hard time seeing (and treating) your nether-regions because they are . . . hidden. A slender patient is easier to work on. A doctor of all people knows that you could be less difficult to treat. OF COURSE they want to work on slender people more than fat people! Once again, let us not be unclear when we use words: Doctors have a bias against treating fat patients. Bias: NOUN: 2a. A preference or an inclination, especially one that inhibits impartial judgment. Health insurance companies turn down people who have had heart attacks and cancer, as well. They are actually not in the business of helping you, they exist to make money. Underwriting policies on people almost guaranteed to cost more than they pay in premiums, is not the way to make a profit.

    Bloggers in the fat-o-sphere track cases of discrimination they say go uncovered in the mainstream media. Just recently, United Airlines, a unit of UAL Corp, said it will require obese passengers bumped from full flights to purchase two seats on a subsequent flight. That would match the policies of other carriers, including Continental, Delta, JetBlue and Southwest Airlines.

    If you can't fit into accommodations designed for regular fare-paying customers because of your lifestyle choices, why should you be given a seat that could otherwise be contributing to the bottom line of the airline with a skinnier person in it?

    SEXY AT ANY SIZE

    No.

    Deb Malkin, 39, considers herself a fat-acceptance advocate but leaves the political battles to others. Instead, in what she describes as a labor of love, Malkin has opened ReDress, a plus-sized vintage clothing boutique in New York's Brooklyn borough. Housed in an airy 3,000 square-foot (280 square meter) space, ReDress sells frilly dresses, formal gowns and jeans, all in size 14 and up.

    Fine. There is a market and an entrepreneur has stepped in to cater to it. This is capitalism at its finest and I am all for it. May Deb Malkin's enterprise be successful beyond her wildest dreams.

    One recent afternoon, shoppers carried armloads of clothing to spacious dressing rooms, while sales assistants compared the comfort of ReDress to the more typical shopping humiliations of plus-sized consumers.

    Catering to a market. Once again, as a Capitalist pig this does not bother me.

    "There's a whole indy fashion world that we don't have access to," said Malkin. "I think women just come in here and are so excited."

    That's nice.

    Bevin Branlandingham, who considers herself a fat activist, has worked in Malkin's store since it opened in November. Sorting through lingerie, a frock from the 1960s and a colorful size 22 dress by Calvin Klein, Branlandingham said she likes to help women overcome hatred of their bodies.

    Nobody hates their body. Some people's love is unhealthy.

    Branlandingham, who is partial to dresses with plunging neck lines, says she discourages women from buying so-called goal outfits that are too small and instead pick out things that flatter their figures.

    Just so long as you realize there isn't much effective flattering that can be done to a size 33 . . . .

    "I feel like my life's mission is to make the world safer for people to love themselves no matter what their differences," she said.

    Aaaaand the article ends on a completely meaningless quote. Edith, way to go. Except that you forgot to mention anything about civil rights. Oh well.

    ********
    Afterword/even MORE commentary:

    There are a few people with health conditions that prevent their having a healthily-low body weight. They are excluded from any and all criticism of fat people. If you have not been diagnosed as one of those people, having first given diet and exercise the old college try, do not claim to "have thyroid problems." Nobody believes it is your thyroid when you are mentioning it to them around a mouth full of triple-cheeseburger, sorry.

    Fat people know they are fat, and they know everyone else knows they are fat. Furthermore, most of the two-seaters suspect, and know that you suspect, that they could be much smaller, given a systematic application of willpower on their part. They have no respect for themselves because they know they are constantly letting themselves down. They strongly suspect that everyone else has no respect for them, for the same reason. So instead of making the -admittedly extremely difficult- effort to keep the weight off, they want you to accommodate them when they give up.

    That is, I should have to spend money out of my pocket, to make life easier for them, when they will not do it for themselves.

    Thanks for thinking of me, but I'd rather have it the other way 'round.

    ********
    Full disclosure: I am what our parents would have called "normal-sized" back when the mean and median weights of Americans were much, much lower. I stand six feet tall and for the last decade or so I have weighed in at +/-5lbs. of 155lbs. I cannot "pinch an inch." With a full set of clothes, shoes, gun, PDA, knife, wallet, keys, and hat, I'm still under 170 on most days. I maintain my low weight by never being completely still (even sitting down I move my hands & feet a lot), eating a light breakfast, working every day at a physically active job until after lunch time when I am no longer hungry (read: ignore appetite until it goes away) and then have a light lunch. Maybe a piece of fruit for a snack in between meals. Chase it with a light supper, hours before bedtime. I drink water almost exclusively, except for a tall cup or two of coffee during the day and an occasional glass of a real-fruit-juice or milk. When I get full I stop eating. Try it some time. It sucks, but it works.